Arthur Aston Talbot

Arthur Aston Talbot was born at Awre, Gloucestershire on 5th March 1881 and baptised there on 3rd April of that year.  He was the son of Hervey Arthur Talbot (born Ingestre Hall in Staffordshire) and his wife Eva Julietta (nee Crawshay) who was born at Oaklands Park in Awre, Gloucestershire, the daughter of Henry Crawshay, colliery owner and ironmaster.  Henry Crawshay was known as “The Iron King of the Forest of Dean”.  Hervey Arthur Talbot was a Colonel in 1st King’s Own Stafford Militia and Eva normally resided at Rhysnant Hall in Montgomeryshire.

The Census of 1881 showed Arthur as living with his parents and his older sister Muriel Margueretta, aged five years of age, at Newnham Road in Awre.  They were living with Eva’s mother.  Hervey Talbot was described as a landowner.  

Sadly, Arthur’s father died in 1884 at Aston Grange at the age of 56 years, when Arthur was only three years old.  His widowed mother married again in late 1887, to George Capel Ralph Curzon Fenwick.  Eva died in late 1888 in Denbighshire, after less than one year of marriage, at the age of 34 years.  Arthur was by then seven years of age.

By 1891 Arthur and his sister were living with their stepfather at Erbistock Hall near Wrexham.  Muriel and Arthur were now 15 years and 10 years of age. The census recorded Arthur as having been born at Aston Grange, but this is not correct.  Later that year the stepfather married again.

Ten years later the two siblings were the wards of Elise Visinand, who was French.  They were all living at The Hall in Hunston, near Stowmarket in Suffolk. They all were living on their own means.  

In 1911 Arthur and Muriel were residing at Cathedine, a small hamlet near Brecknock (Brecon) between the Brecon Beacons and the Black Mountains of Powys in Wales.  They had several servants and lived on private means at Treholford House.

A year later, on 13th April 1912, Arthur married Mary Winifred Battiscombe who was born in 1870 in Radnorshire in Wales.  Their son Patrick Edward Aston Talbot was born in September 1913 in Chelsea.  

Arthur served in the Great War in the Brecknockshire Battalion of the South Wales Borderers.  He was a Lieutenant and he served in East Africa.  

Sadly he contracted bronchopneumonia whilst in Kenya and died in hospital in Nairobi on 29th October 1918, at the age of 37 years.  He was buried in Nairobi South Cemetery.

Mary Winifred Talbot was living in the New Forest in Hampshire by 1939 and their son Patrick was married and living in Bournemouth.  Mary died in November 1964 in Evesham in Worcestershire at the age of 94 years.